“Living up to the high esteem it receives from being a classic of the 1990s, A Few Good Men is a strong audience pleaser with more than its fair share of memorable moments.”
Plot
Lieutenant Daniel Kaffee (Tom Cruise), a young navy lawyer in the Judge Advocate General’s Corps, arrogantly prides himself on never having set foot in a courtroom before. After all, he successfully plea-bargained all of his previous cases. Because of his reputation, he is assigned to defend two marines accused of murdering a member of their squadron in the hopes that he will settle the case quickly and quietly. Enter Jo Galloway (Demi Moore), an overambitious internal affairs officer, who convinces Kaffee that there might be more to the story than meets the eye. Did the marines kill the victim out of their own volition or were they following orders? The film culminates in one of the most famous courtroom scenes with an even more iconic witness outburst. Continue reading this article for an examination of A Few Good Men, but only if you “CAN HANDLE THE TRUTH!”
Legal Eagles?
The courtroom scene is very entertaining and makes for great cinema; yet it is about as realistic as the courtroom scene in Legally Blonde. While the letter is intentionally comedic and earns quite a few laughs, A Few Good Men wants the audience to believe that they witness accurate courtroom drama. Any law student or lawyer watching the film will inevitably wince or scoff at some point. Kaffee interrupts and yells at a witness, he ignores objections from the prosecution and even a contempt charge from the judge. One of the defendants commits perjury when he is examined by the prosecution about his whereabouts leading up to the murder. Kaffee and Galloway are confused about the direction of the questioning and all they do is write down a question mark. However, the only reasonable question is how did they not know? After all, they spent hours preparing their clients for cross examination and they also should have prepared a timeline beforehand. In what is supposed to be the climax of the film, Kaffee interrogates, not examines, Colonel Nathan Jessep (Jack Nicholson) with absolutely no actual evidence to support him, which is a terrible strategy. He got extremely lucky, essentially only winning the case because the screenwriters forgot that witnesses can decline to answer questions to avoid self-incrimination. One thing is sure, Kaffee and Galloway are not quite the legal eagles the film wants them to be.
Element of Surprise Predictability
While there are many legal inaccuracies in A Few Good Men, one of the film’s even bigger flaws is the complete lack of surprise moments. Even the outburst at the end that is supposed to come as a shock was foreseeable. Not even 20 minutes into the film, a conversation between Jessup and another lieutenant reveals the twist of the case, that the hazing of the victim was indeed ordered. Later on, Kaffee discusses his strategy in detail with Galloway and mere moments later the audience sees the strategy pan out as planned. Spoon-feeding all of the information of what will happen before it actually happens completely undermines the audience’s ability to figure things out. The only thing that comes close to being a surprise and is actually a welcoming change from other legal films, is that there is no romance in A Few Good Men. Apparently, the screenwriter was once asked[2] why the character of Galloway was even played by a woman if there wasn’t going to be a romance. His response: “Women have purposes other than to sleep with Tom Cruise.”
Final Thoughts
While the film offers an interesting perspective of what it means to wear a uniform, especially with regards to unquestioning obedience, A Few Good Men does not meet up to audience expectations because of the many legal inaccuracies and predictability of the plot.
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